Word: sax
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...Roots was begun in 1977 and a fresh volume has emerged every three months since, more or less. The first, titled simply, The Roots of Rock and Roll, presents an amalgam of early styles to which later volumes are entirely devoted. Wild Bill Moore, a Texas tenor sax player, kicks off side one with a 1947 recording of "We're Gonna Rock, We're Gonna Roll," one of the earliest references to R&R; in it, boogie woogie piano, screaming sax and uproarious vocals meet an immovable backbeat, and rock & roll is born. Other noteworthy artists introduced in this...
Honkers & Screamers (vol. 6) is perhaps the most definitive Rock & Roll album in the series. This instrumental LP of very early (mostly around 1948) sax-led rock features Paul Williams (not the short blond mutant), Hal Singer, Big Jay McNeely (the main argument for this set) and other important sax screamers. McNeely's ferocious sax attacks coupled with some of Rock & Roll's earliest arrangements are powerful statements indeed. In a sense, this record hints at a very primative form of jazz rock: highly improvised yet controlled-by-the-arrangement sax playing is set against Jazz's traditional "walking bass...
Also uplifting (to say the least) are four sides of Sam Price & the Rock Band (vol. 7): Backed by some of the most important players of the day--sax legend King Curtis and jazz guitarists Mickey Baker and Kenny Burrell, Price is a wonderfully versatile boogie woogie piano player and writer (he wrote or co-wrote all 25 tunes). This set, mostly from 1956-57, features Curtis at his absolute best; his stutters, yowls and screams on sax constitute the perfect Rock & Roll instrumental voice. When Sam Price and friends hit their boogie woogie stride on tracks like "Roll...
...Mimeo & the Duplicators keep the three hundred partygoers hopping until midnight. Then veteran R&B performer Roy Brown takes the stage with his group of crusty black musicians. Waits moves from the entrance way to the dance floor. This is what he came to hear. Roy Brown's sax player, Lee Allen, used to play with Fats Domino -- one of Waits' heroes...
...least two songs on the album from mediocrity and lifts one to brilliance. The bass playing is at times superb, and probably Ron Wood's; elsewhere it is merely workmanlike, and probably Bill Wyman's. Over the years the Stones have acquired a nonpareil corps of sidemen, and sax Bobby Keys, harmonica Sugar Blue, and Keyboards Nicky "Jamming with Edward" Hopkins and Ian Stewart perform with their customary elan. The production and mix are dazzling. Only the guitars are inadequate; if the rhythm guitar and short fills work as well as anyone's, the leads are, unfortunately, hopeless. Whether they...